Covering A Lightplane Fuselage By Bob Whittier, EAA 1235 P. O. Box 543, South Duxbury, Mass.

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HIS ARTICLE will seem to cover details which are "old hat" to the experienced aircraft mechanic and amateur aircraft builder. It has been written as a result of a growing number of requests from newcomers to our

would be to choose a piece 20 ft. long and perhaps 48 in. wide. You would measure about 1 ft. inward from one end, and the same amount inward from the diagonally opposite end, and make an almost-diagonal cut to get

sport and magazine for fundamental how-to-do-it information on aircraft fabric work. So it is hoped that the

the two side pieces. Or one piece of cloth 36 in. wide might give enough cloth to cover one side and the bottom. If one is uncertain, it is possible to use lengths of brown wrapping paper of appropriate width to make patterns, or to make miniature patterns to scale from the

old-timers will indulge us this attempt to be of assistance to the many enthusiastic newcomers!

The subject in the photographs is the fuselage of a 1935 model E-2 Cub, rebuilt by the author a short time

ago. Therefore the procedure to be described is applicable to aircraft in both the antique and amateur-built classes. In the job to be described, Grade A cotton aircraft fabric was used and the information given is primarily applicable to that type of covering. Other fabrics used on small aircraft include Irish linen, Ceconite, fiberglass

and a variety of Dacron and, of course, some of the details of working with them vary. However, the basic procedures of fitting, cutting, attaching and doping are similar

and the steps shown here can be of use to a person who has chosen one of these fabrics. To start at the very beginning, it would be well to

explain that Grade A fabric and others are available in rolls of varying width, beginning usually with 30 in. and running usually in 6 in. increments up to as much as 72 in. and even more. One notes what widths are handled

by the firm from which one is buying materials, and decidas what width might be the most feasible and economical for the fuselage under consideration. Practically

all fuselages taper from front to tail and this must be taken into consideration.

blueprints or model, and juggle them around on rectangles drawn to scale and representing contemplated fabric lengths and widths, to find the most economical size. But it must be remembered that some waste is inevitable. Don't try to economize to the point where no margin for error and working is left. Usually about 2 in. margin is considered the minimum desirable . . . it depends on the size and curves of the area involved. Left-

over scraps have their uses, such as for doubling patches, etc. Before starting to apply fabric, the fuselage must be prepared. Naturally all the framework must have been cleaned up and suitably primed for protection against corrosion. Make sure that nuts located underneath floorboards, such as those which hold rudder pedals in place, have all been properly tightened and cottered. Gas tanks, baggage compartments and control cables must be in place and safetied. It is usual to attach wire to the rear ends of control cables and wrap it around the tail post at some suitable point where the wire will clear the

fabric. Pull the cables tight enough so they won't flop (Continued on next page)

Suppose a fuselage measures 28 in. in height at its forward end, from upper to lower longeron. A strip of 30 in. fabric would seem the best, for it would allow a 1 in. margin at top and bottom for sticking to the longerons; close but adequate. But if the fuselage is only 12 in. high at the tail, that means that a long triangular

piece of cloth would be trimmed off from tail all the way forward to the vicinity of the cockpit. So long and narrow that it probably could not be used to very good advantage in covering a control surface, interior of cabin, landing gear vee, etc. So it is a matter of using common sense. One way to make better use of fabric would be to use a piece 30 in. wide and perhaps from 30 to 35 ft. long for a fuselage that is 20 ft. long. After one side has been cut, the piece is reversed and held onto the other side for trimming, the trimmed piece working out to be a very long and very narrow scrap of varying width. Another way

Fig.

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COVERING A FUSELAGE . . . (Continued from page 15)

about as the fuselage is turned over and touch the wet fabric or become caught on structural projections. A pair of good saw horses that won't readily slide out from under the ends of the fuselage are needed. Remember, the tubes usually will rest on the horses at an

angle due to fuselage taper. In the accompanying photos, a pair of strong boards was bolted to the front of the fuselage by the engine mount bolts, and served as legs when the landing gear was removed. If the cockpit is to be lined with doped fabric — about the easiest, cheapest way of doing a good "upholstery" job — work is started by clipping a piece of fabric to the outside of the fuselage as in Fig. 1. This makes it easy to cut the cloth to correct shape to fit on the inside of the framework. Suitable notches, perhaps a bit undersize, are cut to let the fabric clear fittings as it is wrapped onto longerons. It can be held temporarily in place with bits of masking tape, with C clamps, or any available kind of spring clips. Often the inside of a cockpit is studded with brackets and other projections having to do with the controls. Holes, notches and slits must be cut in the fabric as common sense dictates to fit around such obstacles. Try to keep the holes as small as possible, but do not worry if it seems essential to make a fairly large one such as can be seen about the throttle control support bracket at the top left longeron in Fig. 2. All such slits and holes

Fig.

to use nitrate for initial attaching of fabric to frame. Attaching goes easier and quicker, and may be more secure. With bits of tape or suitable clips, affix the section of fabric to the frame with an equal amount of margin on all sides. If there are prominent sags or wrinkles, work them out — but there is no need to worry about

small ones. Brush dope copiously along 2 or 3 ft. of tubing, press the cloth down into place and rub firmly with a finger to remove air bubbles and doubled spots in the cloth. Then brush dope onto the outside of the cloth so that it is thoroughly wet. At all times try hard to avoid applying dope so liberally that it dribbles down across the fabric or drips onto it. If this happens either on the inside or outside, the dope involved will dry hard long before the fabric as a whole is doped, and form hard little buttons that will show through the final coats very clearly. Such spots are not only unsightly but because they are brittle, can cause early failure of the fabric at those points. When applied in normal thicknesses, dope remains quite plastic and this is what enables the fabric-and-dope skin to give under the bumps of service. When the first strip to have been doped in place is dry, apply dope to tubing opposite it and as before attach the fabric by doping and rubbing. Dope dries quite rapidly and you can usually work right along, alternating from side to side or top to bottom. However, don't rush things; if you go too fast and a doped section is pulled loose because it has not set firmly, you will have to go back. Though the fabric may not come completely off a section of tubing through premature pulling, it could move just a little and somewhat weaken the developing dope-fabric-tube bond. Before long, the inside piece we have started with is all fastened in place as in Fig. 3. In this particular

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can be covered neatly with doped-on patches which will be unobtrusive when doping is finished. Fabric is usually sewn into a sock to fit onto the fuselage of a large or fast airplane. It is cut to approximate shape with top, side and bottom pieces. Aircraft supply shops sell "T-pins", large common pins with easyto-push T-shaped metal heads. With these pins the various pieces are fastened together where seams are to be, usually but not necessarily along the longerons. The "sock" is then sewn up on a machine and pulled on from the tail. But for small, slow airplanes it is common to attach fabric by doping it directly to the longerons. If it goes about 50 percent around the longeron the dope will hold

Fig.

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Fig.

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it on quite all right, and as pinked tape goes over seams

anyway it further binds sections of fabric together. The best way to appreciate the bonding power of pinked tape is to pull some off of an old airplane! Butyrate dope is not as "sticky" as is nitrate dope and in cases where it is intended to finish the plane with the more durable and fire resistant butyrate, it is still common 16

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Fig. 7

Fig.

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Fig. 8

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job the floorboards to each side of the two seats were left out while the inside fabric was going on, to facilitate doping the lower edges to the lower longerons. To get a uniform coating of dope on the fabric right down to and somewhat around the lower longerons, the doping was done all the way up to the final coat as in Fig. 4 before the floorboards were screwed down. The next step is shown in Fig. 5, where one edge of a wide strip of cloth has been temporarily clipped to

the top longeron. With scissors, the fabric was then trimmed off about 4 in. below the longeron — 2 in. margin both for top and bottom — as in Fig. 6. The section

of fabric trimmed off was then attached by its uncut

edge to the other top longeron and not cot at once. Rather, with a pencil the desired cutting line was marked on

it. Then it was removed and the fuselage turned over as in Fig. 7. The area of cloth facing the camera is that which was on the fuselage side; it has been taken off

and its "waste" section laid onto the bottom of the fuselage to see if a piece could be cut from it to cover the bottom. It could be, so the cloth was cut along the pencil mark and in Fig. 8 the bottom strip can be seen in place. In other words, from the single wide piece seen in Fig. 5, two side and one bottom pieces were obtained. In Fig. 9 the bottom piece is being doped on. The area ahead of the two C clamps has been doped and the dope is dry. You will note that the doped-on area is not at all

tight or smooth. An old rule of thumb is that fabric should be put on just tight enough so that a penny or

dime dropped about one foot onto it will barely bounce.

However, there can be exceptions. This E-2 Cub was originally covered with "lightplane" or "intermediate" grade fabric, which has 112 fine threads per inch. The interstices between threads are somewhat smaller than is the

Fig.

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case in Grade A, which has 80 threads per inch. Naturally, to get 112 per inch each has to be smaller and is of course weaker, so tear strength — which depends on individual thread strength — is less. Because there were too many cases of fabric tearing in flight on lightplanes with aged covering, the government some years ago instructed airmen to switch to Grade A when recovering lightplanes. The larger interstices between the threads leads to larger "lenses" of clear dope in these tiny squares, these larger lenses shrink more when the dope dries, and therefore tension is greater. When fabric is applied to the comparatively light tubing as on the E-2 Cub in these pictures with normal initial tension, doping can pull it so very tight that the longerons are bowed in appreciably. This is not only unsightly, but

weakens the longerons against compression forces. Knowing the foregoing facts, the writer thus applied fabric to his fuselage rather loosely — roughly 2 in. of slack in the side pieces as between top and bottom longerons. In spite of that initial looseness, the final result was fabric so tight that a little longeron bowing still showed up.

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COVERING A FUSELAGE . . . (Continued from page 17)

With bottom fabric on, the fuselage was set right side up and side pieces put on as in Fig. 10. Here the piece for the left side is not yet on but can be seen clipped to the longeron in the cockpit area. The margin of the bottom piece has been trimmed off with a razor blade held in a holder. In trimming fabric along longerons, the object is to get all undoped, loose cloth off and leave only that which is firmly cemented to the tubing. When loose, undoped margins are left on and remain inside the fuselage, they collect and hold dirt and water, hastening the rusting of longerons.

Fig. 11

Fig. 10

You do not dope another piece of fabric to an area of already-attached fabric which is not doped. Fabric "drinks up" the first coat of dope and if two pieces of undoped fabric are doped together, the chance is high that the seam will be starved for dope in the vital area between layers. As the top fabric on the E-2 fuselage comes down over, overlaps and is doped to the side fabric, at this point the bottom and sides were therefore given one coat of dope. Before dope is applied, it is common practice to wet fabric with water. As soon as it is thoroughly wet, it shrinks to drumhead tightness and all wrinkles and sags vanish save only really bad ones. Do not use tap water which is known to have a high mineral content or to contain other impurities, for this can lead to trouble. If salts remain after such water has dried, they can interfere with dope adhesion and in damp weather will draw moisture into the fabric from its inner, undoped side, thus hastening mildew and rot. Sometimes chemicals left by bad water can actually react with chemicals in polluted atmospheres and form compounds which attack the fabric. Use distilled water, or if you wish to try it just leave the work outdoors on a night when dew is forming and watch the cloth tighten up! The first coat of dope is often thinned somewhat so that it will penetrate the fabric and really wet it. Complete, total wetting and penetration is very important to obtaining durable adhesion and effective tightening. Don't wipe a dope brush on the can rim any more than seems necessary to prevent free dribbling between can and fabric. You are not using paint — forget about nice

painting technique. Push the dope into the fabric with short, vigorous strokes. Don't try to brush the dope out as

you would paint, but on the other hand avoid applying dope so thickly that pools form and leak through so that dope collects and runs freely on the inner surface. Work along rapidly and continuously. When the first coat has dried you might be dismayed, for the fabric will have the puckered appearance visible 19

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Fig. 12

Fig. 13

in Fig. 11. But fear not! This is normal and puckering won't usually disappear until the third coat has dried. Now fabric can be fitted to and doped onto the fuselage top. In Fig. 12 we ran into a small embarrassment — the remaining fabric was not quite wide enough! As can be seen, a small piece was stitched on to fill in the gap, and Fig. 13 shows it trimmed off and doped to the side fabric. It is common and quite permissible to do this sort of thing. In this photo you can see how the top fabric has been brought about IVi in. to ly 2 in. down

over the side fabric — strong enough for a light airplane after some 2 in. pinked tape has been doped 50-50 over

the joint. Try hard to make a straight, smooth cut on an edge like this, for an irregular one will often show

through the pinked tape in a ragged line. Professional

fabric men like to use pinking shears for such work, for two reasons. The zig-zag edge so produced does not have the long, loose threads that come off an edge cut with common scissors and which make doping more of a chore, and the zig-zag edge has more length per running foot, hence a better bond.

verse ridges and edges. Where there are openings in the fuselage fabric such as at control surface attachments and inspection doors, the fabric is cut out of the opening leaving a suitable margin, and then doping it in and around the superstructure which forms the opening, finishing off neatly with pinked tape. At this point, by means of dope "glue" onto the surface at desired points the plastic rings or rectangles which will reinforce the fabric at inspection holes, and apply drain grommets where common sense suggests they should be on the bottom of the fuselage and at the tail.

Fig. 14

In Fig. 14 can be seen how the fabric was brought around some struts which pass through it. After a few coats of dope had been applied to the fabric, neat patches were cut to fit snugly around the tubing and doped on, taking care to dope it snugly onto the tubing as well as to the fabric. By the time all coats of dope are on, such a fabric-to-tubing joint will have a secure bond and quite smooth little fillet. The "pinked tape" previously referred to is merely aircraft fabric cut into long strips with zig-zag or pinked edges and sold in rolls. By inspecting any fabric-covered airplane at the airport one can see where it is used — on every seam and on practically every ridge and edge where there could be chafing. The double thickness gives protection against chafing through from either inside or outside, and limits the spread of a tear should

Fig. 15

unusual chafing manage to cut through the cloth. In Fig. 15 pinked tape is being put on over a stringer which shapes the fuselage top. To put it on, one first brushes dope liberally on the fuselage fabric. Stick several inches of tape down at one end and unroll 4 or 5 ft. of it. Holding and guiding it so that it goes down without twist and so that its centerline matches the centerline of the ridge or stringer being covered, bring it down onto the fabric. Brush firmly to work the dope up into the pinked tape, then apply dope to the outer surface of the tape to completely fill it. Continue thus to the other end of the strip. It is usual to put fore-and-aft strips of tape on first, and then at cockpit and tail ends apply tape on trans-

Fig. 16

In Fig. 16 the fuselage is entirely covered; pinked tape may be made out faintly around the cockpit door. There are about three coats on the plane at this stage and all puckers and wrinkling have disappeared. After the second coat, go over the fabric very lightly — just a onceover "wipe" is often enough — with medium-fine sandpaper to cut the nap off the fabric and take down any sharp projections along the edges of pinked tape. This is repeated after each coat of clear dope — it also cuts off small bubbles, bits of lint and paint brush bristles which might get onto the surface after the third, fourth and fifth coats. The number of clear coats needed varies. The solids content of different makes and grades of dope varies. Sometimes four coats are enough, sometimes five — not often are more than six coats needed except on speed or deluxe planes where extra build is wanted. When the surface is generally though perhaps not completely glossy there is enough clear dope. While using clear dope be quite careful not to get it in the eyes, for it is always very painful and can be damaging in large quantities. Your fingers will be all caked and rough with dope from smoothing down seams and tape. Only occasionally does a person come along whose skin chances to be noticeably sensitive to dope. When dope is thick enough it of course reduces skin flexibility and may lead to slight and mildly irritating cracking of the skin along the folds on the joints of fingers. You may choose to apply a common workman's protective cream before starting to work with dope. Dope is so-called because as originally compounded decades ago its solvents could make workers groggy. Today's dope will not do that, although some persons may find its odor too strong. Use it in a well-ventilated work area and keep open flames away. In the fluid form, all

dope is very highly inflammable. When it is judged that the fabric is tight enough and its weave reasonably well filled over by clear dope, again sand lightly. To one gallon of clear dope add about three ounces of very fine aircraft grade aluminum powder. To avoid lumps of dry powder and speed thorough mixing, it is helpful to mix the powder with a few cupfuls of thinner before adding to the dope. When powder is (Continued on next page) SPORT

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COVERING A FUSELAGE . . . (Continued from page 19)

very thoroughly dispersed in the dope, thin out as required for spraying and proceed to spray this silver colored dope onto the fuselage. Put it on as wet as possible without having it sag or run. Many mechanics prefer to use cross-spraying to assure thorough, uniform coverage — on each section the gun is moved back and forth one way, then back and forth in spray paths that are at 90 deg. to the first layer. Each such treatment is counted as one full coat.

If the air is humid, such as it often is in mid-summer and out in garage workshops in the evening, dope tends to "blush" when it dries. Its solvents evaporate rapidly and this chills the dope surface so that atmospheric moisture condenses on the surface. This in turn leads to the surface turning milky. It is not good because in undercoats it results in weakened, less durable dope films, and in finish coats spoils appearance. If you sense the air is damp, test-spray a small section of fabric such as down near the tail and observe whether or not it blushes upon drying. If it does so, add to the dope a moderate amount of "retarder", a clear liquid obtainable from supply houses which has the property of slowing down the drying so that the chilling effect of evaporation is less. The writer has found that lacquer thinner and retarder bought at local automotive supply stores is for all practical purposes the same as that sold by aircraft supply houses and is both cheaper and more readily available. Pay shipping on good aircraft dope from a distant supply house, but save shipping and price on thinner and retarder. This material from automotive supply houses works with nitrate dope but not on butyrate dope.

When the silver dope is thoroughly dry, it will probably have a rough, leather-like surface. But don't be discouraged! For a fuselage of this size, about a half dozen sheet of No. 320 waterproof sandpaper will be enough. The numbers, 220, 280, 320 and 400 used to identify such

abrasive paper refer to the number of openings per square inch in the screens used to sift the abrasive during

manufacture; 220 is "fine", 280 is "very fine", 320 is

"extra fine" and 400 is "superfine." Fold a sheet in half to make a small "book" out of it and tear in half. Fold each half piece twice to divide it into three segments but don't tear, merely leave it folded with smooth back against abrasive front to minimize slipping. Put water in a bread pan or similar container, wet the sandpaper, and, holding it down lightly and uniformly with the flat of three fingers, start sanding with long, light strokes. The water acts as a lubricant to get a better cut, it keeps the sandpaper from clogging, holds down what would otherwise be fine, choking dust, and in case a static spark jumps, acts as a flame suppressant. Some mechanics like to be on the safe side and ground the fuselage to a radiator, etc., with a jump wire. Sand a space about 1 ft. wide and 2 ft. long at one time. Cut the silver dope off as much as 50 percent or more —

you will see clear dope showing through quite plainly

When sanding wings, it is essential to be careful not to push down so the cloth touches the wing spars a quarter of an inch below, for there too there is danger of cutting the fabric and on a wing it can be a real safety

hazard in flight. Upon completion of this first sanding, wipe off all

remaining dust and spray more silver dope on. When it has dried it will be somewhat smoother, but inspect the surface for any rough spots or pits which might still be left. If a few isolated bad areas are found, sand them

smooth and build up with dope before going ahead and sanding the whole fuselage. If after sanding this second coat is smooth and very little if any clear dope is visible through it, it may be all right to proceed to the color dope. On the other hand, it is the density of the aluminum pigment that shuts harmful sunlight out from the light-sensitive clear dope, and there is no objection to having three or more coats of silver dope except in the case of ultra-light aircraft where weight must be kept to an absolute minimum, or where the framework is so light that excess tightening must be avoided. The color of the writer's fuselage was to be silver, so after the first two coats of silver dope had been well sanded, three more finish coats were sprayed on. The total was four coats of clear and five of silver, or nine altogether. Depending on the kind of fabric used and smoothness desired, as few as seven or eight coats could be used, and some of the fine polished finishes seen on deluxe fabric covered planes have 15, 18, 20 or more total coats. Before the final coat goes on, the fuselage is wetsanded with No. 400 paper. Between all other pigmented

coats sanding is done with No. 320. The subject of dope spraying and working with colored dopes is a story in itself and will be covered in another article. Everyone likes an attractive color scheme. Differ-

ent colors are put on aircraft surfaces by means of masking tape and paper. Look at masking tape closely; it has a crinkled surface remindful of crepe paper. This lets one edge stretch as the other edge is pressed down along a curved color line. For a complex color layout cardboard patterns help to get identical curves on right and left sides. A pencil point drawn lightly over silver dope will leave a visible line. To duplicate the original E-2 color scheme the writer referred to old snapshots and pictures in magazines. The long strip on the fuselage is quite easy to make. A few inches of tape are stuck to the surface just ahead of where the strip is to begin, and at exactly the right level. Then the tape is unrolled as far as the tail, tension being held on it to keep it off the floor. With the hand perhaps 2 ft. outboard of the tail post, the tape is pulled firmly back until all sag goes out of it. The roll is held in the hand so as to avoid any twist or curve in the length of tape. With one eye on the forward section of the tape and the other on a pencil mark indicating the level of the stripe at the tail, the tape is carefully brought in toward the tail and as this is done its length will lay right onto (Continued on bottom of next page)

over much of the area. This first coat of silver is really the same as a sanding primer on automotive work or

sanding undercoater on boat hull work. Use a window cleaning squeegee — a 6 in. one is good — to wipe off the muck of water and dust left by sanding. When sanding near edges and stringers go easy so as not to cut through the fabric. On the writer's E-2 Cub there were no longitudinal stringers on the fuselage sides and the diagonal tubes in the framework were right up

against the fabric. It was necessary to be very careful in

sanding close to and over them so as not to cut through.

It's much easier to sand a fuselage that has enough stringers to hold the fabric clear of internal cross-framing. 20

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Fig. 17